Counselling for Heterosexual or Same Sex Couples

If your relationship is feeling difficult or unrewarding, couples counselling for heterosexual or same sex couples can help you get back on track. I offer Gottman Method couples counselling as it’s a “nuts and bolts” approach to help you get the basics right.

Has your relationship become less of a friendship?

Do you find that conflict and differences get out of hand or go nowhere but around and around?

Do you feel that you and your partner’s dreams seem to be diverging?

Are you wondering whether to continue with the relationship or to cut your losses and leave?

Do you think your partner is considering leaving?

In our sessions we’ll be working on all of these factors to improve the day-to-day experience of your relationship. To help you both make it sustaining rather than draining.

If you are both committed to improving your relationship, we’ll start by doing a thorough assessment of where you are in your relationship, how you came to be there and where you both actually want to be. This puts the counselling on a firm and realistic basis to allow you to make changes that last.

If either or both of you is not sure about your commitment, couples therapy is likely to be a waste of time and money. In that case we’ll do a short series of sessions (1 – 5) to allow you each to work out where you are in the relationship: In, Half-In Half-Out, Out. If you both decide to be In, couples therapy can start. Here’s an overview of this Discernment Counselling process developed by Bill Doherty.

Couples counselling in the Gottman method is very much like coaching: teaching and correcting, providing tools and exercises. This is not in-depth psychotherapy: it’s getting the basics of building and maintaining your relationship right. If it seems that psychotherapy for either partner may be helpful, we’ll discuss that as an adjunct to the relationship work.